We're Live
After months of late nights and way too much coffee, Oplinque is finally live. This isn't a typical launch announcement. I want to actually talk about why this exists and what makes it different.
The Problem Nobody Talks About
Here's the thing: job hunting in 2024/2025 is absolutely brutal.
You apply to 50, 100, sometimes 200+ jobs. You're juggling company names, role titles, interview dates, follow-up emails, recruiter calls, take-home assignments... and somewhere along the way, you forget which Acme Corp you applied to (there are apparently 47 of them).
Most people use:
- Spreadsheets - works until you have 30+ rows and forget to update it
- Notion/Airtable - powerful but requires setup and maintenance
- Job board "saved" features - scattered across 5 different sites
- Memory - lol
I tried all of these. Each time I'd start disciplined, updating everything religiously. By week 3? Chaos. Missed follow-ups. Forgot interview times. Applied to the same job twice (embarrassing).
So I built the thing I actually wanted.
What We're NOT Doing
Before I show you what Oplinque does, let me tell you what it doesn't do, because I think the anti-patterns are just as important:
No gamification BS. Some apps treat job searching like a game with streaks and achievements. Your mental health doesn't need that pressure when you're already stressed about finding work.
No social features. I don't need to see that @TechBro69 applied to 47 jobs today. This is a personal tool, not a competition.
No mandatory AI upsells. AI features are opt-in and work with your own API keys. You control it, not us.
No bloated dashboards. I've seen job trackers with 15 widgets on the homepage. You need clarity, not cognitive overload.
What We Actually Built
The Board
The core is a Kanban board. Yeah, not groundbreaking. But the difference is in the details.
Senior Engineer
Full Stack Dev
Staff Engineer
See that? Drag. Drop. Done.
No save button. No loading spinner. No confirmation modal asking "are you sure?" for the 500th time.
I obsessed over making every interaction feel instant. When you're tracking 50+ applications, even a 200ms delay adds up to frustration.
Adding Applications
The wizard walks you through everything in steps:
The core fields are required: Company, Job Title, Status, Job Description, and Resume. Everything else - salary, contacts, reminders, notes - is optional. You can skip through steps you don't need.
Got a job URL? Paste it in step one and we'll try to extract the details automatically. No URL? Just type the basics and move on.
The goal was to make it fast for spray-and-pray applications, but detailed enough when you actually care about tracking everything.
The Full Feature Set
Here's what's already built and working:
Core Tracking
- Application tracking with custom workflow stages
- Kanban board with drag-and-drop
- Resume management (multiple versions)
- Company profiles with notes and ratings
- Contact management for recruiters
- Calendar and reminder system
- Notifications for deadlines and follow-ups
Smart Features (AI-powered, opt-in)
- Cover letter generation
- Resume analysis with improvement tips
- Job fit scoring (resume vs job description)
- Voice interview practice with feedback
- Compensation insights
- Cold outreach email drafts
All AI features run on your own OpenAI/Anthropic/OpenRouter key. We don't see your data. We don't store it. I built it this way because I'd want the same privacy.
What's Next
This is v1. There's more to build:
- Email integration - Detect interview invites and update status automatically
- Browser extension - Now available for Firefox and Edge (Beta)! Chrome coming soon.
- Mobile app - Because sometimes you're checking on your phone at 11pm (been there)
- More analytics - Deeper insights into response rates and timing
I'll be honest: some of these might take months. I'm a solo dev with limited time. But shipping something useful today beats waiting for perfection that never comes.
Try It
Oplinque is free to use. No credit card, no trial limits on core features.
If you're in the middle of a job search, I genuinely hope this helps. If you have feedback, bugs, or feature requests - I'm all ears.
Good luck out there.
- The Developer
P.S. If you're curious about the tech stack: React, Elysia, Bun, DrizzleORM, Tanstack Query, Tailwind, and way more TypeScript than I planned. Details in a future post.